Case Studies: British Airways

British Airways is currently the world's largest international airline, transporting more passengers around the world than any other carrier. In 1996, the British Airways Interactive Channel Management Team, an internal technical and business-oriented consulting group, began focusing on interactive technologies, such as email and the World Wide Web.

"LISTSERV is most appropriate for our needs in terms of managing large-volume distribution lists with minimum administrative overhead, being a cost-effective, reliable and supported solution."

The Interactive Channel Management Team at British Airways soon realized they needed a new tool that could improve interactions with customers and business partners worldwide. They considered electronic newsletters and online discussion groups as an effective answer to their problem.

"LISTSERV® is most appropriate for our needs in terms of managing large-volume distribution lists with minimum administrative overhead, being a cost-effective, reliable and supported solution," said Eilish Gorse, Email Operations Lead at British Airways. "We now have mass-distribution lists that we use to facilitate customer relationship marketing. We inform customers of current, relevant promotions. This gives them the opportunity to take advantage of our special offers."

British Airways currently has more than 70 lists. Currently, the airline is focused on furthering the development of its customer relationships. In April 2000, British Airways created a special unit to focus solely on useful e-commerce tools like LISTSERV. "More and more use is being made of the mail-merge functionality of LISTSERV," explained Gorse. "Recently, we have been running targeted personalized campaigns, promotions and offers, which have proved very popular with customers."

"Getting the right information to the right people at the right time is what it is all about. Email marketing is becoming more and more significant for customers as they are using the Internet to communicate with us through mailing lists. By doing so, they are requesting an email relationship with us. This makes tools like LISTSERV software more and more essential to a company like British Airways," concluded Gorse.

Case study written in April 2001 with the assistance of Eilish Gorse, Email Operations Lead, British Airways.